Spatial accessibility to health-care facilities in Suhum District, Ghana

To improve geographical accessibility to health facilities in rural Ghana, it has been recommended that additional health facilities be built. Resource constraints make this recommendation infeasible. Using location–allocation models, this paper demonstrates that in the Suhum District of Ghana substantial improvements in accessibility can be achieved with better locational choices and without additional facilities. Also, additional facilities will produce little improvement in accessibility if location is not explicitly considered. The paper demonstrates the utility of location–allocation models for improving accessibility to services in the Third World.